Adams wins second successive Staunton Memorial

Michael Adams justified his position as the top seed in the 2008 Staunton Memorial, by winning the tournament for the second successive year. Leading by half a point from Van Wely, going into the final round, Adams had the white pieces against his main rival, and made his intentions clear by choosing the quiet 3.Bb5+ against the Sicilian. Van Wely evidently decided that he had no real chance of winning the resuilting Maroczy Bind position, and offered a draw at move 15, which was accepted.

Quiet draws also ensued in the games Timman-Wells and Short-Werle, whilst Speelman-Sokolov fought out a tougher draw, which eventually culminated in a standard drawn rook ending, where all pawns were on one side of the board.

The two decisive games involved the young Dutch GMs L'Ami and Smeets. The former overcame Bob Wade as Black, wrapping up the game with a neat queen sacrifice:

Here, L'Ami clinched the game by 31...Qxf2+! 32.Qxf2 Rxf2, when 33.Kxf2 is impossible because of 33...b2, when the pawn queens. Bob instead resigned after 33.Rb7 b2 34.Rxb4 Rc2 35.Nf1 e3 36.Nxe3 Rc1+ 37.Kf2 b1Q 38.Rxb1 Rxb1 39.c5 Rb4 0–1

Jan Smeets completed an outstanding 3/3 finish by beating Cherniaev with the black pieces, after the latter blundered away a drawish-looking position:

Here, White should play 30.Ke3 Nc5 31.Nd4. Instead, he blundered with 30.Qxc3?? bxc3 31.b4 Bc4 32.a5, having expected only 32...Kf8. Instead, Smeets played 32...f6! 33.exf6 e5  and Cherniaev had to resign, since the c-pawn queens. 0–1

Thus, another great tournament ends. The final scores read as follows:

Adams 8, Van Wely 7.5, Smeets 7, Timman 6.5, Sokolov and L'Ami 6, Short, Werle and Speelman 5.5, Wells 5, Cherniaev 3.5, Wade 0.

Adams can be justifiably happy with his result, as can all six of the Dutch players, who dominated the team event once again. Jan Smeets, in particular, underlined that his victory in the 2008 Dutch Championship was no fluke, and his score here should take his FIDE rating over 2600 for the first time. Of the English players, mention must be made of Bob Wade, who battled wonderfully, but ultimately came up empty-handed. Nevertheless, I am sure that everyone associated with the game hopes that they too can still be playing international chess when in their late 80s! 

And with that, we bid you goodbye from Simpson's, and hope that you have enjoyed the 2008 Staunton Memorial tournament.